NOAA employees dread future amid ongoing cuts, layoffs

Researchers at Charleston’s national Hollings Marine Lab on James Island normally aren’t worry-warts. But the new slash-and-burn fiscal environment from the Trump administration’s new federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leaves them with a growing sense of dread about the future of their vital work to protect coastal waters.

“It’s bad,” said one HML source who asked not to be named. “Everybody knows someone who was either fired or has resigned. It would be hard not to know half a dozen people by now.”
Several others who haven’t gotten the axe are being pushed to retire, including career civil servants with more than 20 years of experience.

“This loss of institutional knowledge — we’re not going to recover for decades,” the source said.

Ed Wirth, a career environmental scientist who has been affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) since 1995, said the grim mood at the research center named for the late U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings is unprecedented. Hollings, a Charleston native, is considered the father of marine research for authoring everything from the Marine Mammal Protection Act to the Coastal Zone Management Act.

“I know a lot of people who have lost sleep, myself included,” Wirth said. “You’re concerned not only about what your job is because a lot of the folks are involved in government science, but they’re not there to be political. They’re there to ask questions in the themes that they study, that they’re experts about. Those inherently are not political, they’re just science.”

The HML building houses employees with NOAA, the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and some state marine-related offices. While NIST hasn’t yet seen any cuts, the source said it’s likely only a matter of time.

“You just don’t know what shoe is going to drop next,” the source said. “People who are trying to look on the bright side of life are telling me to just keep my head down because I still love my job. But I’m like, ‘You can only stay and stand in tree pose for so long when they poke you every 10 minutes.’ ”

What’s at risk?

Another source who works at Hollings said it’s difficult to tell what exactly is under threat based on a federal budget that was leaked in April. Previous proposals made by the Trump administration in 2018 during his first term zeroed out funding for NCCOS, but Congress restored the agency’s funding.

“I don’t know if the political environment would be susceptible to that right now,” said another HML employee who wished not to be named. “What was leaked is just one of many steps in a budget process that is complex and long and dysfunctional. It is one of the few constitutional jobs on the president’s side — to create a functional budget. We’re still struggling to figure out what our fiscal year 2025 dollars are, and we’re halfway through the year.”

Annual budgets for the HML are not publicly specified, but the laboratory’s funding is part of NOAA’s broader financial allocations. In 2024, NOAA’s total budget was about $6.72 billion, with $4.55 billion allocated to operations, research and facilities. A portion of this funding supports research conducted at laboratories and cooperative institutes, including those at the HML.
Some fear the lab at the end of Fort Johnson Road may close entirely.

“The Marine Resources Center has been one of the East Coast’s leading hubs of marine and fisheries science for more than 50 years, and the Hollings Marine Lab contributes significantly to that distinction,” the state Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) said in a statement. “One of the most valuable benefits of the lab is the collaboration it fosters between federal, state and academic researchers.”

Wirth said the HML was a unique facility among federal research institutions due to the variety of work done there and the vast populations it serves.

“While the HML is in Charleston’s backyard, we have outreach and collaborations with folks that range everywhere from native communities in Alaska to the Caribbean to islands in the Pacific,” he said. “There’s an international research facility in Charleston. We don’t champion it; we don’t put gold stars on our building, but there really is. If I was somebody in Charleston or in South Carolina, I would want to keep that here.”

Uncertain futures

Wirth said that from a technical standpoint, it will be difficult to recover from the dramatic cuts that have already taken place at Hollings. But he said he has faith that the people that have been let go will continue to do good science wherever they end up.

“The change that’s occurring is really quite sudden, but the people who are separating from service I think in large part are still around and available and would be happy to serve in that role. … Obviously we wouldn’t be federal employees anymore.

“I’d rather have the opportunity to be a good scientist than stay and get a paycheck and not be able to do good science due to budget restrictions,” he added.

The first source said the only path forward that ends positively is congressional action to restore federal funding.

“There are so many actions that this administration has taken that are illegal, and the security risks of DOGE are enormous,” the source said. “We have to take … security training every year, and when I read about insider threats — [Donald] Trump and Musk are, by definition, insider threats.

“I don’t know how we get out of this without deposing the administration,” the employee added. “It’s not about efficiency — we aren’t opposed to that. But this approach seems to be more akin to swinging the sledgehammer at as many things as possible before they are stopped.”

What could be more difficult to rebuild is the trust lost in the scientific community and the structure of federal programs.

“I think there will be books written about that,” Wirth said.